How Visualization Supports the Daily Work in Traditional Humanities on the Example of Visual Analysis Case Studies

Attempts to convince humanities scholars of digital approaches are met with resistance, often. The so-called Digitization Anxiety is the phenomenon that describes the fear of many traditional scientists of being replaced by digital processes. This hinders not only the progress of the scientific domains themselves – since a lot of digital potential is missing – but also makes the everyday work of researchers unnecessarily difficult. Over the past eight years, we have made various attempts to walk the tightrope between 'How can we help traditional humanities to exploit their digital potential?' and 'How can we make them understand that their expertise is not replaced by digital means, but complemented?' We will present our successful interdisciplinary collaborations: How they came about, how they developed, and the problems we encountered. In the first step, we will look at the theoretical basics, which paint a comprehensive picture of the digital humanities and introduces us to the topic of visualization. The field of visualization has shown a special ability: It manages to walk the tightrope and thus keeps digitization anxiety at bay, while not only making it easier for scholars to access their data, but also enabling entirely new research questions. After an introduction to our interdisciplinary collaborations with the Musical Instrument Museum of Leipzig University, as well as with the Bergen-Belsen Memorial, we will present a series of user scenarios that we have collected in the course of 13 publications. These show our cooperation partners solving different research tasks, which we classify using Brehmer and Munzner’s Task Classification. In this way, we show that we provide researchers with a wide range of opportunities: They can answer their traditional research questions – and in some cases verify long-standing hypotheses about the data for the first time – but also develop their own interest in previously impossible, new research questions and approaches. Finally, we conclude our insights on individual collaborative ideas with perspectives on our newest projects. These have risen from the growing interest of collaborators in the methods we deliver. For example, we get insights into the music of real virtuosos of the 20th century. The necessary music storage media can be heard for the first time through digital tools without risking damage to the old material. In addition, we can provide computer-aided analysis capabilities that help musicologists in their work. In the course of the visualization project at the Bergen-Belsen memorial, we will see that what was once a small diary project has grown into a multimodal and international project with institutions of culture and science from eight countries. This is dedicated not only to the question of preserving cultural objects from Nazi persecution contexts but also to modern ways of disseminating and processing knowledge around this context. Finally, we will compile our experience and accumulated knowledge in the form of problems and challenges at the border between computer science and traditional humanities. These will serve as preparation and assistance for future and current interested parties of such interdisciplinary collaborative project

Listening to Ekphrastic Musical Compositions

This dissertation offers an approach for analyzing ekphrastic musical works—compositions that take other artworks as their subject matter. It proposes two theoretical models for listener-observers’ engagement with ekphrastic compositions. The first model, termed descriptive representation, refers to musical components that can be considered representational independently from the context provided by the other artwork. It involves a metaphor that the musical piece and the visual image or text have in common. The second model, termed contextual representation, refers to musical components considered representational only in the context of the other artwork. Rather than arising separately from each artwork, it is the product of multitextual listening, in which listener-observers form connections between the ekphrastic piece and the other artwork. Four analytical chapters demonstrate the application of the models to different types of cross-media interaction. The first concentrates on music after painting, including a comparative study of three movements from orchestral compositions— Gunther Schuller’s Seven Studies on Themes of Paul Klee (1959), Peter Maxwell Davies’s Five Klee Pictures (1959/1976), and Tan Dun’s Death and Fire: A Dialogue with Paul Klee (1993)—composed after Paul Klee’s painting Die Zwitschermaschine (1922). Each of the pieces provides a singular interpretive outlook on the painting. Together, the analyses demonstrate the multiplicity of interpretations an artwork can receive through musical ekphrasis. The second analytical chapter concentrates on music and space, examining Morton Feldman’s Rothko Chapel, composed after Rothko’s chapel in Houston. I propose that Rothko Chapel as musical ekphrasis provides a sonic identity for the chapel, allowing it to transcend its physical properties by bringing the space into presence in listeners’ minds even when listening to a performance away from the chapel. The third analytical chapter examines the boundaries of ekphrasis through analysis of Luciano Berio’s 1996 composition Ekphrasis (Continuo II), composed after his Continuo for Orchestra (1989–1991). I argue that Berio’s ekphrasis diverts listeners’ attention from similarity to difference, from presence to absence, helping achieve a broader understanding of contextual representation. Lastly, an analysis of Arnold Schoenberg’s Begleitungsmusik zu einer Lichtspielscene, Op. 34 (1929–1930) compares models of representation in programmatic music to musical ekphrasis. The analyses demonstrate that music becomes representational by virtue of a listener’s activity that treats ekphrastic musical works as multitextual. Moreover, this dissertation provides a framework for interpreting representation in post-tonal music

Christopher Small's concept of musicking: Toward a theory of choral singing pedagogy in prison contexts.

Ph.D., Music Education and Music Therapy, University of Kansas, 2007The purpose of this investigation was to raise and examine questions relevant to building a theory of choral singing pedagogy for prison-based choirs with reference to Christopher Small's (1927- ) concept of "musicking." Historical-biographical method was employed to construct an account of Small's life and work using published sources and personal interviews with Small. Philosophical inquiry was used to examine his published writing, the roots and logic of major propositions contributing to his mature concept of musicking, and published criticisms to date of Small's philosophy. Thereafter, Small's philosophy of musicking was investigated in terms of its explanatory power in building a theory of choral singing pedagogy in prison contexts. In that regard, Small's concept of musicking was compared to major propositions articulated by traditional aesthetic philosophies of music, and contrasted with three contemporary North American philosophies of music education (Reimer, Jorgensen Elliott) with respect to the logical capacity of each philosophical framework to respond to two primary assumptions: (a) choral singing typically entails the articulation and communication of words ("the word factor") and (b) choral singing evidences a union between musical agent and musical instrument ("the somatic factor"). Major arguments advanced were that (a) Small's concept of musicking more ably accommodates the word factor and the somatic factor than either traditional aesthetic philosophies or the three philosophies of music education examined; and (b) the contextual and relational components of Small's concept of musicking render it able to address many of the variables unique to choral pedagogy in prison contexts. Finally, a theory of interactional choral pedagogy in prison contexts, based on Small's concept of musicking, was advanced. The proposed theory was addressed in terms of defining its operational variables, specifying relationships among those variables, and stating the theory such that it could be falsified or confirmed through subsequent research and assessment. It was suggested that Small's concept of musicking may signal a paradigm shift in ways of thinking about choral singing pedagogy in prisons and other contexts

Ludomusicological Immersion in Curaga EP

This dissertation is an endeavor in artistic research. It documents findings within the field of video game music immersion, and how it ties into the three pieces of music from my EP: Curaga. I want to research the immersive qualities of video game music and apply it to my own productions. This research will attempt to answer the question: Can I find potential values through musical immersion in video game music, to enhance my own compositions? The method of this research falls into the epistemic realm of artistic research, this allows for parallel observations between the music and the documentation, in which the music speaks for itself. To investigate the properties of video game musical immersion I will discuss the ALI-model which was created within the field of Ludomusicology. The ALI-Model splits the term “Video Game Musical Immersion” into the three concepts: Affect, Literacy, and Interaction. Through reflecting upon the creative workflow and the aesthetic choices within the three songs from the EP, i will get a valuable insight into how i can improve my immersive musical qualities. Within the discussions i will reflect upon how I create music with an intent to affect my listeners emotionally, furthermore, how I desire to attain their full immersive attention

"Knowing is Seeing:" The Digital Audio Workstation and the Visualization of Sound

The computers visual representation of sound has revolutionized the creation of music through the interface of the Digital Audio Workstation software (DAW). With the rise of DAW-based composition in popular music styles, many artists sole experience of musical creation is through the computer screen. I assert that the particular sonic visualizations of the DAW propagate certain assumptions about music, influencing aesthetics and adding new visually-based parameters to the creative process. I believe many of these new parameters are greatly indebted to the visual structures, interactional dictates and standardizations (such as the office metaphor depicted by operating systems such as Apples OS and Microsofts Windows) of the Graphical User Interface (GUI). Whether manipulating text, video or audio, a users interaction with the GUI is usually structured in the same mannerclicking on windows, icons and menus with a mouse-driven cursor. Focussing on the dialogs from the Reddit communities of Making hip-hop and EDM production, DAW user manuals, as well as interface design guidebooks, this dissertation will address the ways these visualizations and methods of working affect the workflow, composition style and musical conceptions of DAW-based producers

Highlife and its Roots: Negotiating the social, cultural, and musical continuities between popular and traditional music in Ghana

In this honors thesis, I examine the ways in which Ghanaian highlife, a 20th century hybrid popular music style, is in dialogue with Ghana’s own traditional music and culture, what scholar John Collins describes as a “continuity with traditional life.” Arguing against conceptions of highlife music as “simplified” or “pidgin,” I suggest that there is a fluid relationship between Ghana’s traditional music and its highlife. The socio-cultural/musical elements of traditional music appear in highlife through indigenous instruments, melodies, rhythms, storytelling forms, and other thematic material. At once, traditional music exists as a resource from which popular musicians may strategically draw inspiration

A Musical Portrait of Triton, the Rogue Moon of Neptune

This thesis explores the worlds of astronomy and music telling the tale of Triton, the once dwarf-planet-turned-moon. The central creative work, Triton, the Rogue, a seven-minute musical composition for wind ensemble, follows Triton's journey translating scientific facts into a musical narrative. The accompanying thesis treatise details the science behind Triton's story and explains the musical decisions made to faithfully portray Triton in a piece of instrumental music.Musi

Fluid Dynamics: Representations of Water in Music

Water has remained a subject of all kinds of musical works since at least the middle ages. These musical works lack the concrete representational capacity of paintings, photographs, and films, relying instead on more abstract metaphorical constructs to convey water imagery. Current scholarship on water music typically centers on Romantic and Impressionist works and does not examine the process of signification by which musical signs portray water. The principal goal of this study is to determine how musical devices convey specific aspects of bodies of water and how such devices interact and contribute to musical depictions of streams, rivers, lakes, and oceans. I find that evocations of motion in the form of waves and flow are especially important to portrayals of water; furthermore, music depicting motion can combine with devices evoking water’s other characteristics to create detailed, multifarious depictions. I give special attention to John Luther Adams’s water compositions, which are notable for their thorough depictions of bodies of water and represent a relatively new phenomenon: the focused musical depiction

Mobile-Based Interactive Music for Public Spaces

With the emergence of modern mobile devices equipped with various types of built-in sensors, interactive art has become easily accessible to everyone, musicians and non-musicians alike. These efficient computers are able to analyze human activity, location, gesture, etc., and based on this information dynamically change, or create an artwork in realtime. This thesis presents an interactive mobile system that solely uses the standard embedded sensors available in current typical smart devices such as phones, and tablets to create an audio-only augmented reality for a singled out public space in order to explore the potential for social-musical interaction, without the need for any significant external infrastructure